Riot backs off last-hit indicators in ranked League

Riot Games reversed a recent plan to enable last-hit indicators in ranked Summoner’s Rift games after players pushed back. The developer will keep the indicator active only in non-ranked SR modes — swiftplay, co-op versus AI and normal draft — for testing under patch 26.13, with the feature off by default in those queues.

The last-hit indicator marks when minions are within lethal damage range for a player’s champion. It shows a darker segment on a minion’s health bar and changes color when the minion becomes killable, helping players time the final blow to secure gold, commonly tracked as creep score (CS).

Riot had originally included the indicator in patch 26.13 notes and planned to enable it in normal draft and ranked SR matches. The developer initially wrote that the tool would not reduce lane skill expression and suggested players could focus on other skills. Hours after the announcement and broad community feedback, Riot posted that it would restrict the tool to non-ranked SR queues for continued testing.

Riot wrote, “We’ve seen a lot of conversation around last hit indicators coming to ranked, and we’ve decided to enable them in non-ranked SR queues only for continued testing.” The company added it wants more data and feedback before deciding whether the indicator should become an option in ranked, and said it will share performance updates and development notes before any future change.

Riot has kept the indicator available in swiftplay and co-op versus AI for several months. The developer also revised the original 26.13 patch notes following the discussion and plans to gather quantitative data from non-ranked matches and qualitative feedback from players to inform future decisions.

Some players and community members argued the indicator serves as a learning aid for newer players in lower-stakes modes. Other players argued that timing last hits and adapting to changing damage values is a core laning skill that affects gold income and match outcomes; one community member called enabling the indicator in ranked “a bad precedent.”

For now, last-hit indicators will not be enabled by default in ranked Summoner’s Rift. Riot will continue testing the tool in non-ranked queues and report back with data and updates after the testing period.

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